We were all up in good time and managed to leave the hut by 10:15 only 15 minutes later than we should have been, there was no cleaner waiting to get in so it did not matter. We headed off and filled up at the Delabole petrol station, one of the many independent service stations you see in Cornwall.
We made good progress and were soon at Stourhead NT and ideal stopping point for a stretch and some lunch. It was 3 hours from Cornwall and left us a 2 hour journey to home. The place wasa busy and the overflow car park was filling up, not surprising as the weather was gorgeous and bad weather was on the way for Sunday.
Stourhead NT is one of the more popular National Trust properties it has a house and extensive grounds with some follys and a large lake. It was (is?) owned by the family that founded the Hoare Banking company I believe similar to Coutts in terms of it’s customers. We had lunch first in the modern building which houses the cafe and obligatory shop, the queue was long because it was lunch time and there was only one till manned.
After lunch of sandwiches all round we went to look at the house, which was the type of NT house I prefer with a bit of old and a bit of new in it. After we took a walk around the gardens and lake followed by the walled gardens where I admired their artichokes which put mine to shame. We popped into the farm shop to get some essential supplies for dinner and then headed back to the car to continue you journey home.
There were signs suggesting the M3 was shut at a junction we needed to pass so we ended up diverting from our planned route onto the A34 via Oxford. It made no difference to our travel time and we arrived at home on schedule.
That evening we watched the ITV series called Bletchley something about a murder case solved by ex-wartime code breaker women, which we enjoyed.